The German Finance Minister is facing fresh vilification for his plans on tax harmonisation and over the last few days British newpapers have branded him:

• "A jumped-up big mouth"
• "An outrageously egocentric big-mouth"
• "A tubby socialist leader"
• "A jumped-up little bean-counter with a grossly inflated sense of his own importance"
• "The voice of old-fashioned socialism"

Such controversy is nothing new to Mr Lafontaine.

He first hit the headlines while ploughing the furrow of local politics in his home region, Saarland, by demanding the United States remove its nuclear weapons from German soil.

Some press attacks have verged on the hysterical

Later after German reunification he provoked the wrath of new voters in the East with pessimistic forecasts of the cost of building the new Germany.

He nearly paid the ultimate price for his views when he was attacked by a deranged woman bearing two bunches of flowers, who stabbed him in the neck.

The incident plunged him into a five-year depression, but he eventually bounced back into national political life.

Mr Lafontaine has also weathered corruption allegations and was forced to pay back more than £40,000 he received when retiring as mayor of Saarbrucken.

Uneasy alliance: Lafontaine and Schröder

To the Germans, he is "Red Oskar" or "Little Napoleon" - a reference to his appearance, his fluency in French and his suspected hidden political ambitions.

Earlier this year he stood aside to allow Gerhard Schröder to lead the Social Democrats to election victory and become Chancellor.

Mr Schröder's new left credentials were felt to make him better able to capture centrist voters who were beyond the reach of his more traditionally socialist ally.

Caroline Wyatt: The two men were once bitter rivals

Some commentators have said that the ideological differences between the new Chancellor and his finance minister could ultimately make their working relationship impossible.

There is also the question of Mr Lafontaine's own frustrated ambitions for the top job.

He has already had one crack at the chancellorship - in 1990 - and lost to Helmut Kohl.